1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to ink jet apparatus that uses an ink cartridge and, more specifically, to a device and a method for controlling a printer carriage that needs to be replaced.
2. Background Art
With the increasing amount of data that must be archived stored and presented constantly increasing, more efficient ink jet devices have been developed to meet increasing performance demands. Different methods of printing have been developed, such is the dot-matrix method, the electronic picture-developing method, and the ink-jet method. Among these methods, the ink jet printer has developed a system of forming images on cut sheets of paper that is efficient and economical. There are two types of ink-jet printers, the continuous jet type and the drop on demand type of ink jet printer. The continuous ink-jet printers project a continuous spray of ink drops from a small nozzle toward a recording medium. In contrast, the drop on demand ink-jet printers release droplets in response to signals from a controller. The controller causes changes in the pressure within the ink storage chamber of the printer cartridge resulting in a succession of droplets being ejected. Many advancements have been made in ink-jet technology due to continuing efforts to increase printer speed and to improve the resolution of printed images.
It has been noticed that contemporary ink-jet printers tend to be inefficient when the ink cartridge must be replaced. When a printer receives the command to replace a cartridge the printer transports the cartridge outside of the printing area. This is important as ink can often leak from the cartridge due to shocks that are generated while removing and inserting cartridges into the carriage. Thus, by removing the carriage from the printing area of the printer, the sheet of paper that is being printed upon will not be contaminated by ink.
The moving of the carriage outside of the printing area, however, results in both a loss of time that can be significant when a highly used printer needs frequent cartridge replacement and results in reducing the amount of free space surrounding the cartridge during the removal process, thus making replacement more difficult. As such, it may be possible to improve on the contemporary art of ink jet devices by providing a method and a device for controlling a carriage that reduces the amount of time consumed waiting for a carriage to be moved from the printing area, that reduces the probability of polluting a sheet of paper that is within the printing area during the replacement of an ink cartridge, that allows more space around the cartridge to facilitate the removal of the cartridge, and that moves the carriage to a position depending on whether paper is detected in the printing area.